


Watch as the Clock Stops (And Mourn Those You Knew)

by Anonymous



Category: Unus Annus - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF, Who Killed Markiplier? (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, The clock finally stops.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:48:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27554875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The end approaches, and Dark says goodbye to an (old, new, ancient) friend.
Relationships: Darkiplier & Annus, Markiplier - Relationship, No Romantic Relationships - Relationship, There are no romantic relationships here
Comments: 6
Kudos: 64
Collections: Anonymous





	Watch as the Clock Stops (And Mourn Those You Knew)

"You've taken the time to see me off, then." 

A flattered joke, subdued by inevitability.

There's a blink, and a figure is no longer standing alone. They almost match, in the odd way that they all did — anchored in one visual, tailored to a man who lived his life of his own volition. They are similar in more ways than one, clad in suits that differ only in tone, one bleeding into blue and red whilst the other does not. 

Annus does not look at Darkiplier as he speaks, but his voice echoes all the same. They are similar in that way too, with their voices and murmurs and quiet buzzing undertones. Annus talks with the echo of another, obsidian to his void. It bleeds through in the faint spiral behind his irises, the ticking of the ever-moving clock. 

Dark purses his lips, clears his throat and adjusts the vibrant shock of red around his throat. He flicks at the black of his collar, expression pulled into distaste. 

"It's only right," Dark says, "it isn't often that we have a finite timeline for these things."

Annus chuckles at that, closes his eyes as he tilts his head backward. His hair falls in long ringlets, drifts around his throat like falling tendrils of the very spiral that made up his existence. The bitter note to that sentence is not lost on him, Dark knows. Annus, ever the enigma, has always understood the undertones. He doesn't have to speak, but that had never stopped him before. 

"True," he murmurs, "that's very true." 

"..." 

Dark's hands move, and they do not. They twitch and they are still. Thus is his existence, ever changing without moving a muscle. Frozen in a body that aches with every movement, clicks with unhealed bones. He cracks his neck. It is the only thing _they_ do together. 

"Are you afraid?" 

Dark's voice rings out to a void that none have ever returned from. One that Annus borders now, his pristine white shoes toeing the line with an almost playfully apathetic sigh. It was strange, the dichotomy of this ego. The smiles that seemed real, even as they bled blood that smoked like tar. 

"No," he says predictably, and really Darkiplier had expected nothing less; "no. What is there to fear?" 

Annus spreads his arms. He still does not look at Dark, and Dark does not try to make him. They stare into the void instead, watch as it shifts from white to black and back again without ever changing at all. Annus flickers, grows shorter as his white fades to black. He's back again in an instant — never left, looking completely unbothered. He brings his hands back, presses his fingertips to one another in a triangle of contentment. He is smiling. 

Dark envies that. He has a painful suspicion that he always will. 

"I consider myself lucky," Annus murmurs. Atop his head a white mass flickers, the echo of a tophat. Their time grows shorter, and he continues to smile. 

"The rest wish you a safe journey," Dark says after a moment of prolonged silence, "they… apologize. For not being here." 

The others feared the border, with the exception of Wilford. Dark had actively forbidden him from attending, knowing he was too erratic to stay to their sides. Annus's smile grows knowingly soft. The chasm behind his eyes fills with something unreadable, and he pushes his foot a bit farther into the nothing. 

"They needn't apologize," he chuckles again, "their well wishes are much more than enough." His voice distorts strangely, twists and echoes almost as Dark's does. He taps his foot once. The sound is strange when it has nothing to bounce against. When Dark blinks, he sees the echo of a split coffin. 

"You truly fear nothing," Dark says aloud. It has been a long time since he has wondered about anything at all. Annus's lips curl into victory. 

"What is there to fear?" He repeats, "peace awaits me, my friend. There is nothing that brings me more comfort than that." He reaches up and tilts his hat a bit, adjusts it over his eyes. He looks sly, almost cunning.

"And besides," he continues, voice beginning to take on a wistful quality, because Annus has never been anything but a contradiction; "I am lucky. I can hear them, calling for us." 

"They wish for you to stay," Dark reminds him. Annus's smile turns rueful, but it never quite drops. 

"They always do," he murmurs. He flickers, in that way that only Unus and Annus ever had. The way eternity did before the blinking eyes of the blind, the way inevitability bit at the heels of those who resisted the pull. 

"They have learned from you, too." 

Annus's smile grows proud, in the old aching manner that turns paper to parchment, curls the edges of an age. 

"They always do."

Dark can hear the ticking as Annus speaks, he realizes. He can hear the tick of the clock, even if he is not subject to it's numbers. He has always existed outside of that, ever since the choice that haunted his every stolen breath. Perhaps that is what pushes the uncharacteristic words from his mouth, tinged with something he thought he could not express. 

"They will miss you," he says. He does not mean the other egos now, although that too is true. He knows Annus understands when he nods, dips his head a bit lower as he runs the tips of his fingers along the brim of his flickering hat. He finally turns his head, pushes spiralling eyes to meet the echo of blue and crimson. 

"And I, them." Annus's reply is unbearably fond. He has always been fond of his fellows, and has never been afraid to show it. Gifts, words, intents. He packages them all up without a second thought, presses them into the hands of those who need it most. Dark wonders how he can do it, treat every goodbye as a new experience. How he could invest himself so completely in the tales he must have told a million times before with a million different faces. How he can smile like the borrowed form he's taken had been his only manifestation. 

How he could still, despite it all, embrace death like an old friend. 

(The ticking stops. The absence is deafening.)

Annus smiles. He turns, and Dark steps carefully away from the border as Annus turns his back to it, not moving an inch. 

Dark raises a monochrome hand. Annus does the same. 

"... And I, you," Annus repeats, amends, and maybe that has always been the same; fainter now.

He closes his eyes, and Dark watches as he tilts his body backward. 

Dark watches as Annus, in his pristine glory, falls peacefully into the abyss. Long after he is gone, long after the ticking stops, he speaks. 

_"Memento Mori,"_ he whispers. 

_Unus Annus,_ the void whispers back, a voice they will never quite hear again. 

_Memento Mori,_

_Unus, Annus._

_(He can hear them. The sobbing ones, the angry ones. But more than anything, he can hear those who have accepted it, who smile into their tear-riddled sleeves and whisper their heartfelt goodbyes. He hears them on their behalf, and knows that both Unus and Annus would be proud.)_

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Memento Mori, Unus Annus.


End file.
